Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a group of inflammatory conditions of the colon and small intestine. Crohn's disease and colitis (e.g., ulcerative colitis) are the principal types of IBD. Ulcerative colitis causes long-lasting inflammation and ulcers in the innermost lining of the colon and the rectum. Crohn's disease is characterized by inflammation of the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, which often spreads deep into affected tissues. Both ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease usually involve severe diarrhea, abdominal pain, fatigue and weight loss. IBD is a complex disease which arises as a result of the interaction of environmental and genetic factors leading to immunological responses and inflammation in the intestine.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common disorder that affects the large intestine. Signs and symptoms include cramping, abdominal pain, bloating, gas, and diarrhea or constipation, or both. IBS impairs the social and personal life of patients and thus negatively affects quality of life. Although the various causes, such as stress, sensitive personality, irregular eating habits, chronic fatigue, irritating and oily food, and so on, have been suggested, the causes of IBS have not yet been elucidated clearly. The currently-available methods could not provide effective therapy and the satisfactory treating method thereof is not yet known. Therefore, the IBS patients rely only on the improvement of symptoms. It has been reported that the number of patients suffered from IBS increased to about 1.62 million in 2012, an increase of approximately 8.7% (13 millions) over the past five years, with an average annual increase of 1.7%. Most patients (about 99.4% of the total patients) visit the clinic and receive only therapy for the relief of symptoms.
WO 2006/084381 has disclosed a probiotic composition comprising novel microorganisms belong to Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens and a method for providing modulation of the intestinal microflora in a subject comprising administering to said subject the novel microorganisms belong to Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens. However, it has been reported that, when Lactobacillus microorganisms are orally administered, the number of the microorganisms in the intestinal tract is rapidly reduced in a few hours (Berlec et al., In vivo imaging of Lactococcus lactis, Lactobacillus plantarum and Escherichia coli expressing infrared fluorescent protein in mice, Microb Cell Fact (2015) 14:181, DOI 10.1186/s12934-015-0376-4; Van Zyl et al., In vivo bioluminescence imaging of the spatial and temporal colonization of Lactobacillus plantarum 423 and enterococcus mundtii ST4SA in the intestinal tract of mice, BMC Microbiology (2018) 18:171, doi.org/10.1186/s12866-018-1315-4). Therefore, it is unsatisfactory to ameliorate or treat a bowel disease, through probiotic effects by using microorganisms per se.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to develop a new material for ameliorating or treating a bowel disease including IBD and/or IBS, in addition to providing relief of symptoms thereof.